Truck driver’s fate in jury’s hands
Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008
HAMBURG — Jurors began deliberating Thursday evening in the capital murder trial of Kenneth Ray Osburn, the Mc-Gehee-area truck driver accused of kidnapping and strangling Pine Bluff teen Casey Crowder in 2006.
The jury of three men and nine women sat through four days of testimony from the state and defense, which rested its case after calling an expert in police interrogations and false confessions. Richard Leo testified that some of the methods authorities used to get Osburn’s confession completely crossed the line.
The University of San Francisco professor said authorities threatened Osburn and his family in an effort to extract a confession.
During interrogation, authorities told Osburn that if he didn’t cooperate, they would “pump a needle in [his ] arm,” a threat Leo says was way out line.
“There’s no threat worse than the threat of death,” Leo testified. “The only thing worse would be physical assault. These threats are dangerous because they can lead to a false confession.”
Osburn, who confessed to the crime, is on trial for capital murder and kidnapping and faces the death penalty. The defense team’s case is built on the theory that Osburn’s confession to authorities was coerced.
On Thursday, both sides delivered closing arguments, which ended about 6: 30 p. m. Jury deliberations began at 6: 45 p. m.
Authorities say Crowder’s Dodge Durango ran out of fuel about 5: 30 a. m. on Aug. 27, 2006, on U. S. 65 south of Dumas. Crowder spent the previous night with her boyfriend in Pickens, a farming community in Desha County.
When she disappeared, hundreds of people volunteered to participate in the search, which attracted national media attention. Six days after she disappeared, authorities found her body in woods east of Dumas, a plastic zip tie tightened around her throat.
Osburn became a suspect after video surveillance from a Sonic drive-in on U. S. 65 showed his white truck driving south on the highway about 7 a. m., then driving north on the highway three minutes later. He was arrested Sept. 28, 2006, and confessed in two videotaped interviews with authorities.
Prosecuting attorney Thomas Deen, in his closing arguments, outlined the evidence against the defendant and the details of Osburn’s confession. The 10 th Judicial District prosecutor scoffed at the defense team’s theory that Osburn gave a false confession. He also criticized the defense team for trying to put the police on trial.
Deen said Osburn knew too many details to be innocent, pointing to evidence that Osburn corrected investigators about the route he drove to get Crowder to the woods near a canal, where searchers found her body.
Deen said at first Osburn lied about his whereabouts the morning Crowder disappeared. Osburn told an FBI agent conducting a roadblock a week later that he didn’t see Crowder’s vehicle stranded on the highway until after 9 a. m., when he and his son went to a barbecue.
Authorities later told Osburn about the Sonic video. To explain the trip, Osburn initially said he was heading home and turned around to get a pack of cigarettes at Matthew’s, a Dumas truck stop at the corner of U. S. 65 and U. S. 165.
Investigators collected a cash register report from that morning showing no cigarettes were purchased at that time. Deen outlined the details of Osburn’s second video confession.
In that confession, Osburn told authorities he picked Crowder up on U. S. 65 in Dumas. Osburn also told authorities that Crowder asked him if he had a gas tank.
Osburn said he didn’t but could get one and that Crowder got in his vehicle.
“She was dead when she slammed the door to that vehicle,” Deen said. “It was only a matter of time.”
In the interview with authorities Osburn said Crowder was dozing in and out of consciousness as they drove. The last call on her phone, a possible distress call was at 7: 04 a. m., Deen said.
Osburn told authorities he took Crowder to the wooded area and put a plastic zip tie around her neck, watched her walk into the woods and stumble and then get up. He told authorities he left after that.
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